Ian Paisley to step down from North Antrim seat after 40 years as MP

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Ian Paisley, for decades the towering figure in Northern Ireland’s political realm, has announced that he will not seek re-election in the forthcoming general election.

The announcement from the 83-year-old founder of the Democratic Unionist Party brings to a close an era and career which ended with one of the greatest political surprises in British and Irish politics.

Amid disbelief and anger from his grassroots supporters he agreed in 2007 to share power with Sinn F?in, the political wing of the Provisional IRA. It was that decision which proved to be his own undoing, leading to him losing the leadership